Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Hubert H. Humphrey’s Birth

Today is the 100th anniversary of Hubert H. Humphrey’s birth. Humphrey was one of the most influential civil and human rights champions. In honor of his work, The Leadership Conference named the civil and human rights community’s highest honor – The Hubert H. Humphrey Civil and Human Rights Award – after him in 1977. Here is a short piece honoring his legacy that was written for this year’s Humphrey Award Dinner held a few weeks ago.

When Hubert H. Humphrey was born 100 years ago, the United States was poised between its past and its promise. Progressive reforms were underway but, throughout much of the nation, public schools were segregated by law, African Americans and women could not vote, and public accommodations were “For Whites Only.”

A century later, America comes closer to its finest ideals, thanks largely to the advances in civil rights and social justice that Hubert Humphrey championed. He was born and raised in small towns in South Dakota, where his father was the local pharmacist, a community leader, and a passionate prairie populist who taught his children: “Before the fact, is the dream.”

Coming of age during the Great Depression, Humphrey worked his way through college, becoming a professor in Minnesota. Never forgetting the hardships he had overcome, Humphrey became active in politics. Elected mayor of Minneapolis at 34, he reformed the city government and led the effort to enact the nation’s first municipal fair employment legislation.

Humphrey strode onto the national stage in 1948, delivering an eloquent speech supporting civil rights at the Democratic National Convention. “The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadows of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights,” Humphrey declared. After the delegates approved a strong civil rights plank, most Southern delegates walked out, led by Sen. Strom Thurmond, who ran for president on the States’ Rights ticket.

Proudly supporting civil rights, President Harry Truman confounded the odds-makers and won election with the support of African Americans and their allies in the major industrial states. In 1950, Truman submitted a civil rights agenda to Congress, proposing a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission, an anti-lynching law, the abolition of poll taxes, and the prohibition of discrimination in public accommodations.

Meanwhile, Humphrey was elected in 1948 to the U.S. Senate, where he continued his strong support for civil rights and became the first national leader to propose Medicare, the Peace Corps, the Job Corps, the nuclear test ban treaty, and other reforms that would be enacted decades later. Culminating his 16 years as the leading advocate for human rights in the Senate, Humphrey served as floor manager for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, landmark legislation that desegregated public accommodations nationwide.

Elected vice president in 1964 as President Lyndon Johnson’s running-mate, Humphrey played a leading role in passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, as well as Medicare, Head Start, and other progressive programs. But with the escalation of the War in Vietnam and the eruption of civil unrest at home, the Johnson administration became increasingly unpopular. In the turbulent year of 1968, following the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Sen. Robert Kennedy, Humphrey was narrowly defeated for president by Richard M. Nixon.

Returning to the Senate in 1971, Humphrey continued to be a practical visionary. Together with Rep. Augustus Hawkins of California, he introduced the Full Employment and National Growth bill, which was passed in diluted form after his death. Anticipating another emerging issue, Humphrey introduced disability rights legislation in 1972, which helped pave the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Dying before his time in 1978, Humphrey had earned the affection and respect of Americans across the political spectrum. Always the happy warrior, Humphrey was a stranger to the politics of personal destruction that stresses personal attacks that demean rival candidates and wedge issues that divide the American people. His core commitment was to the cause of civil and human rights, or as he put it, “equality for all – no exceptions, no ‘yes, buts,’ no asterisked footnotes imposing limits.”

In 1977, The Leadership Conference established the Hubert H. Humphrey Civil and Human Rights Award in his name to honor those who best exemplify “selfless and devoted service in the cause of equality.”

Humphrey famously said: “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”

Hubert H. Humphrey passed that test with flying colors.